Transforming the Center: Inter-Religious Dialogue, Contemporary Popes, and a Faith-Inspired Path for Peacebuilding

Abstract This article maps two distinct bodies of thought before moving to a synthesis discussion, which proceeds in dialogue with the contributions of Pope Francis to fostering substantive peace. The first section presents select challenges and promises of employing inter-religious dialogue as a tool for peacebuilding. The article then positions papal contributions coupling inter-religious dialogue and peacebuilding. A synthesis section analyzes how Francis is buttressing this connection in particular ways with reference to his notion of building up cultures of dialogue and encounter. The results of this approach will be of interest to nonviolent activists, conflict transformation practitioners, religious studies scholars, and others concerned with dialogue’s potential as a path to peace

“If You Want Peace, Work For Justice:” Assessing Pope Paul VI as a Peacebuilder on the Levels of Insight and Action

Paul VI was the first reigning pope to travel via airplane. On one such trip, he addressed the UN General Assembly, emphatically declaring “War never again! Never again war!” During the same period, Paul VI also saw the Second Vatican Council through to its completion. Vatican II produced an articulation of substantive peace in one of its final documents, Gaudium et Spes. This article employs an analytical yardstick through reading Gaudium et Spes in conversation with a Peace and Conflict Studies perspective, as a means to assess Paul VI’s peacemaking efforts on the levels of insight and action. Specifically, this article addresses Paul VI’s diplomatic initiatives, ecumenical outreach, and his contributions to Catholic Social Teaching, inclusive of the establishment of the annual World Day for Peace Messages. One of those messages is the source of what is his most repeated social teaching: “if you want peace, work for justice.

The Vatican and ecospirituality: tensions, promises and possibilities for fostering an emerging green Catholic spirituality

A partir del mensaje de Juan Pablo II en el Día Mundial de la Paz de en 1990 sobre la crisis ecológica, han sido frecuentes los esfuerzos de divulgación del Vaticano con respecto a temas relacionados al medio ambiente. Basándose en una selección de documentos de la doctrina Social Católica a estos temas, este artículo explora las reacciones del Vaticano sobre argumentos relacionados a la ecoespiritualidad. A través de un lente crítico basado en la ética ecoteológica asimismo que explorando una versión particular de ecoespiritualidad particularmente referida a la condenación del biocentrismo, se pondrá de manifiesto los esfuerzos oficiales de reverdecer la política de la Iglesia Apostólica Romana y las prácticas de la fe que a este tema se refieren. Tomando como punto de partida la prerrogativa de una distancia crítica desde una enfoque Norteamericano, esta ponencia sugiere maneras en las que el Vaticano puede fomentar un reverdecimiento mas integral y pacífico de las doctrina Social Católica y de la Espiritualidad Católica recurriendo a fuentes dentro de la tradición intelectual Católica asimismo que basándose en otras expresiones de ecoespiritualidad, ecoteología y documentos de Educación Social Católica de conferencias de obispos en Europa y la Américas.Since John Paul II’s 1990 World Day of Peace Message on the ecological crisis, green themes have been a recurring feature of the Vatican’s public teachings. Working with a selection of Catholic Social Teaching documents, this article explores the Vatican’s reactions to and accommodations of ecospirituality. A critical lens informed by ecotheological ethics is employed to analyse the Vatican’s specific brand of ecospirituality, particularly as it relates to its condemnation of biocentrism, while also acknowledging official efforts to green the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine and faith-based practices. With the advantage of the critical distance that a North American perspective provides, this article suggests ways that the Vatican can foster a more integral and substantively peaceful greening of Catholic Social Teaching and Catholic spirituality by drawing on resources from within Catholic intellectual tradition, as well as other expressions of ecospirituality, ecotheology, and Catholic Social Teaching documents from local bishops’ conferences in Europe and the Americas

“It Cannot Be Emphasized Enough How Everything Is Interconnected”: Ecological Wisdom, Cross-Cultural Insight, and Pope Francis’ Social Teaching

When understood as anthropogenic phenomena, contemporary social and ecological crises can be framed as moral issues, arising from human action and neglect of duties to marginalized human and ecological neighbours. In so much as the roots of these problematic outcomes lie in worldview, ecological wisdom can help in fostering spaces for integrated ethical responses to associated challenges like global climate change, social injustice, and ecological delegation. The present article highlights select instances of thinkers who express convergences between social and ecological concern by exploring cross-cultural perspectives on ecological wisdom. Then, with the aid of a green theo-ecoethical viewpoint informed by those perspectives, it maps relevant teachings of Pope Francis that are expressed in two of his most important exercises of his magisterial office: Evangelii Gaudium and Laudato Si’. As brought into view through dialogue with contemporary articulations of ecological wisdom, inclusive of overlapping Indigenous and academic insights, this approach helps discern a noteworthy measure of rhetorical support for socio-ecological flourishing found in the teaching of Pope Francis

Fostering Cultures of Encounter: Framing Papal Teaching on Dialogue as Multi-Track Peacebuilding

This article demonstrates that there is a rough parallel between (1) Diamond and McDonald’s (1996) notion of multi-track diplomacy and (2) the four levels of inter-religious dialogue identified by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, along with two other levels discerned within papal teaching by the authors. Diamond and McDonald expanded the political science concept of dual-track diplomacy and, in the process, helped to buttress the legitimacy of peace studies discourse in that discipline. Comparably, this article seeks to introduce papal teaching on dialogue framed in terms of multi-track peacebuilding. As a result, it solidifies a latent resonance between Catholic Social Teaching and peace studies, a confluence that is shown to accord with Pope Francis’ teachings on cultures of encounter

An examination of knowledge, attitudes and practices related to lead exposure in South Western Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Lead is a highly toxic and pervasive metal. Chronic exposure to low levels is responsible for significant health effects, particularly in children. Prevention remains the best option for reducing childhood lead exposure, however the knowledge, attitudes and practices to lead exposure in many developing countries is not known. Methods: We conducted four focus group discussions (FGD) to evaluate knowledge attitudes and practices to lead exposure in Nigeria. An FGD guide was developed from the literature and preliminary discussion with members of the public. Participants in the FGD were randomly selected from adults living in Ibadan, South Western Nigeria in 2004. RESULTS: We found that there was limited awareness of the sources of lead exposure in the domestic environment and participants had little knowledge of the health effects of chronic low-dose lead exposure. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the findings of this study should be used, in conjunction with others, to develop appropriate health education intervention for lead exposure in the domestic environment

Paradigmatic Approaches to Studying Environment and Human Health: (Forgotten) Implications for Interdisciplinary Research

Copyright © 2013 ElsevierInterdisciplinary research is increasingly promoted in a wide range of fields, especially so in the study of relationships between the environment and human health. However, many projects and research teams struggle to address exactly how researchers from a multitude of disciplinary and methodological backgrounds can best work together to maximize the value of this approach to research. In this paper, we briefly review the role of interdisciplinary research, and emphasize that it is not only our discipline and methods, but our research paradigms, that shape the way that we work. We summarize three key research paradigms - positivism, postpositivism and interpretivism - with an example of how each might approach a given environment-health research issue. In turn, we argue that understanding the paradigm from which each researcher operates is fundamental to enabling and optimizing the integration of research disciplines, now argued by many to be necessary for our understanding of the complexities of the interconnections between human health and our environment as well as their impacts in the policy arena. We recognize that a comprehensive interrogation of research approaches and philosophies would require far greater length than is available in a journal paper. However, our intention is to instigate debate, recognition, and appreciation of the different worlds inhabited by the multitude of researchers involved in this rapidly expanding field